Korean Literature?

What is Korean Literature? Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton KOREA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 37 Notes to this edition This is an electronic edition of the printed book. Minor corrections may have been made within the text; new information and any errata appear on the current page only. Korea Research Monograph 37 What Is Korean Literature? Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton ISBN-13: 978-1-55729-187-5 (electronic) ISBN-13: 978-1-55729-186-8 (print) ISBN-10: 1-55729-186-1 (print) Please visit the IEAS Publications website at http://ieas.berkeley.edu/publications/ for more information and to see our catalogue. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94704-2318 USA [email protected] March 2020 KOREA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH 37 CENTER FOR KOREAN STUDIES What Is Korean Literature? Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton A publication of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Although the institute is responsible for the selection and accep- tance of manuscripts in this series, responsibility for the opinions expressed and for the accuracy of statements rests with their authors. The Korea Research Monograph series is one of the several publications series sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies in conjunction with its constituent units. The others include the China Research Monograph series, the Japan Research Monograph series, the Research Papers and Policy Studies series, and the Trans national Korea series. Send correspondence and manuscripts to Katherine Lawn Chouta, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510H Berkeley, CA 94720 [email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kwŏn, Yŏng-min, 1948- author. | Fulton, Bruce, author. Title: What is Korean literature? / Youngmin Kwon and Bruce Fulton. Description: Berkeley, CA : Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2020. | Series: Korea research monograph ; 37 | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. | Summary: “Outlining the major developments, characteristics, genres, and figures of the Korean literary tradition from earliest times into the new millennium, this volume includes examples, in English translation, of each of the genres and works by several of the major figures discussed in the text, as well as suggestions for further reading”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019048812 (print) | LCCN 2019048813 (ebook) | ISBN 9781557291868 (paperback) | ISBN 9781557291875 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Korean literature—History and criticism. Classification: LCC PL956 .K86 2020 (print) | LCC PL956 (ebook) | DDC 895.709—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048812 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019048813 Copyright © 2020 by The Regents of the University of California. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. Front cover: Ssanggŏm taemu (Double sword dance) by Shin Yun-bok (1758–?). Used by courtesy of the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation, Seoul. Cover design: Mindy Chen and Bruce Fulton. Contents Preface vii What Is Korean Literature? xi PART I: CLASSICAL LITERATURE 1 Introduction to Classical Literature 3 2 Verse 7 3 Narrative 25 4 Literature in Classical Chinese 65 5 Oral Literature 85 PART II: MODERN LITERATURE 6 Introduction to Modern Literature 101 7 Poetry 108 8 Fiction 144 9 Drama 195 10 Into the New World: Literature of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries 227 Bibliography 283 Acknowledgments 287 Glossary 289 Index of Names 303 Index of Titles of Literary Works 309 Preface What is Korean literature? More specifically, what is Korean about Korean literature? These are questions the junior member of this authorial team (Bruce Fulton; hereafter BF) asks annually to the students in his survey courses in traditional and modern Korean literature at the University of British Columbia. He doesn’t expect definitive answers, only that we begin to engage critically with a millennia-old literary tradition that still struggles for recognition beyond the Korean Peninsula. In the English-speaking world, the academic field of Korean literature is top-heavy with specialists in modern fiction, with the literature and culture of colonial Korea an ongoing focus for many. Few of us offer instruc- tion in all periods and all genres of Korean literature, as Peter H. Lee, the late Marshall R. Pihl, and other pioneers once did. This is unfortunate if for no other reason than that the wave of Korean popular culture that is increasingly driving popular culture worldwide in the new millennium draws significantly on the oral and performance elements of traditional Korean literature and the improvisational nature of the composition of hanshi (poetry written in Chinese by Koreans). There has long been a need for an introductory text on Korean literary history from earliest times to the new millennium. The present volume, inspired by the manuscript “Han’guk munhak iran muŏshin’ga?” (What is Korean literature?) by the senior member of this authorial team (Young- min Kwon; hereafter YMK), is an attempt to outline the major developments, characteristics, genres, and figures of the Korean literary tradition to students encountering that tradition for the first time—or, increasingly, for students of Korean ethnicity who may have had exposure to Korean literature in middle or high school in Korea and who are now study- ing abroad—to critically engage with Korean literature. YMK’s Korean version provides roughly equal coverage of traditional and modern literature. This version tilts the balance more toward the modern period viii Preface with the addition of a chapter on literature from the 1980s into the new millennium. What makes this volume unique among English-language resources is that it includes examples, in English translation, of each of the genres and works by several of the major figures discussed in the text. These translations, as well as suggestions for further reading, are appended to each of the substantive chapters of the volume. The translations have been selected primarily on the basis of how well, in our estimation, they preserve the flavor of the Korean works and at the same time are via- ble as works of English-language literature. We are especially pleased to offer the late Marshall R. Pihl’s translation of “Hong Kiltong chŏn,” the first time this classic translation of a historic Korean story has appeared unabridged in book form. We have made every effort to contact the translators (or their estates) of the works appearing here. Acknowledgment is gratefully made for their permission to use their works. We also thank the University of Iowa Press, the University of California Press, Koryo Press, and the Univer- sity of Hawai’i Press for permission to reprint copyrighted material. We acknowledge as well the publishers of earlier versions of the translations. [Sentence removed because of inaccuracy at time of publication.] A number of individuals contributed significantly to the development of this volume. Gabriel Sylvian and other graduate students in the Department of Korean Language and Literature, College of Humanities, at Seoul National University, produced a draft translation of an abridged version of YMK’s Korean original. That draft was reviewed by a team of bilingual graduate students as well as YMK and BF in a graduate seminar at Seoul National University in the fall of 2011. BF has since expanded that draft to reflect his own ideas and judgments as they have evolved over two decades of teaching half a dozen Korean literature courses annually as well as courses on reading and translating modern Korean literary fiction. BF alone developed chapter 10, which adds almost four decades of coverage, while in residence at the Kyujanggak International Korean Studies Center, Seoul National University, in the spring and summer of 2016; he gratefully acknowledges the support of a fellowship from that center. He is grateful as well for a residency made possible for him and Ju-Chan Fulton at the T’oji Cultural Center in the city of Wŏnju, Korea, in September and October 2019. The several anthologies of poetry—vernacular and classical, traditional and modern—prepared over the years by Kevin O’Rourke have been indispensable. Kevin O’Rourke, David McCann, and Young Jun Lee have been helpful consultants for the poetry contents of this volume. Robert Buswell offered crucial support in consultations on Buddhist terminology. What Is Korean Literature? We define Korean literature as a distinct literature developed and transmitted from prehistoric times by the people known as Koreans (Hanguk minjok), through the linguistic medium of the Korean language. Koreans trace their hereditary origins to two ancient periods: Ko Chosŏn and Tan’gun. We assume that Korean literature germinated between the first prehistoric settlements by Koreans on the Korean Peninsula and the emergence and flourishing of these ancient Korean states. During this time, the ancestors of the Korean people migrated eastward from Central Asia and settled in the area of Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. Diverse, scattered tribes merged in this peninsular region over thousands of years, culminating in the states known to history as the Three Kingdoms, and then Unified Shilla, Koryŏ, and Chosŏn. Korean literature developed in response to dynamic changes in popular life and culture taking place over the millennia, and as such it is an expression of the region’s distinctive history. For much of their history the Korean people had no script for their language; oral narratives were the only form in which Korean literature existed. Ultimately, Koreans adopted the Chinese writing system together with many other aspects of Chinese culture, greatly enriching their native literature. With the invention of the hangŭl script in the mid-fifteenth century Korea’s reliance on Chinese orthography came to an end. But, it was not until the twentieth century that classical Chinese lost its position of dominance as the literary language of Koreans.

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